"When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to go a step out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at old Windsor furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings apiece, from different farm-houses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted them. There may be such in poor cottages in so neighboring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase or carriage, and should be glad even of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard in any Village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you see, but don't take further trouble than that."--_Ibid._, Vol. III. pp. 23, 24, from _Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 312. An engraving of the chair is to be found in President Quincy's History of Harvard University, Vol. I. p. 288. PREVARICATOR. A sort of an occasional orator; an academical phrase in the University of Cambridge, Eng.--_Johnson_. He should not need have pursued me through the various shapes of a divine, a doctor, a head of a college, a professor, a _prevaricator_, a mathematician.--_Bp. Wren, Monarchy Asserted_, Pref. It would have made you smile to hear the _prevaricator_, in his jocular way, give him his title and character to face.--_A. Philips, Life of Abp. Williams_, p. 34. See TERRÆ-FILIUS. PREVIOUS EXAMINATION. In the English universities, the University examination in the second year. Called also the LITTLE-GO. The only practical connection that the Undergraduate usually has with the University, in its corporate capacity, consists in his _previous examination_, _alias_ the "Little-Go," and his final examination for a degree, with or without honors.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 10. PREX. A cant term for President. After examination, I went to the old _Prex_, and was admitted. _Prex_, by the way, is the same as President.--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117. But take a peep with us, dear reader, into that _sanctum sanctorum_, that skull and bones of college mysteries, the _Prex's_ room.--_The Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846. Good old _Prex_ used to get the students together and advise them on keeping their faces clean, and blacking their boots, &c.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. III. p. 228. PRINCE'S STUFF. In the English universities, the fabric of which the gowns of the undergraduates are usually made. [Their] every-day habit differs nothing as far as the gown is concerned, it being _prince's stuff_, or other convenient material.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. xv. See COSTUME. PRINCIPAL. At Oxford, the president of a college or hall is sometimes styled the Principal.--_Oxf. Cal._